Chilo Rachal: I Would Never Quit On My Teammates

Chilo Rachal started 8 games at guard for the Chicago Bears before being demoted to the bench. After that, Rachal left the team for what was deemed “personal reasons.” That led many to speculate that he had quit on his team.

“I would never quit on my teammates,” Rachal told the Chicago Tribune. “I understand the brotherhood we’ve got and the respect. You’ve got to earn respect.”

“I talked to Lovie like, ‘Coach, what’s going on? I really don’t agree with this,’” Rachal said. “And he was like, ‘I’m going to give you some time to think about this.’ And I was like, ‘All right, Coach.’ So I went home. It wasn’t like I just walked out. I talked to Lovie and he was like ‘I’m going to give you some time to think about this. You go ahead and get away for a minute. We have a team meeting at 3 o’clock. You come back and we go from there.’”

Now Rachal might not have quit on his team, but he did admit to missing that 3 o’clock meeting.

“I came in the next day and worked out and then when I got into the offensive line meeting room, Tice didn’t pull me to the side or nothing,” Rachal recalled. “He just said, ‘Chilo and Gabe, you guys are being replaced.’ I just felt that how he went about it . . . I don’t feel like that was right. I felt like he could have at least pulled me to the side, man to man, and told me.”

Rachal is now with the Arizona Cardinals.